A Phantom Torment
by Toyu
Summary: In which a girl who should be dead travels back in time, and people who eventually die become dead sooner.
1. Phantoms of the Past

The phone on the apartments landline rings shrilly, and Reiji pushes back his chair to answer it. _Who could be calling at this late hour?_ He wonders as he picks up the phone. The voice that speaks belongs to a ghost that haunts Reiji in unescapable nightmares, for it was the voice of the one person who he had failed to save and killed. "Come to the door, Reiji." Reiji breath hitched as the corded phone falls from his hand and bumps the wall with a clatter. The small thirteen-year-old girl with yellow pigtails siting in a nearby chair tilts her head with a worried frown as she stares with jade-green eyes at the unfamiliar expression of shock that was etched across the hired assassin's face. "…Eren…?" he chokes out in a harsh mumble when he remembers to breath, the waring emotions of regret, guilt, disbelief, hope, and deep sorrow exploding in the empty hole where his heart had once been.

In a haze, Reiji picks up the glock 17 pistol that lies on the table in front of the girl, its weight a calming comfort and a painful reminder of the danger he must face in order to survive. He walks towards the door and cocks the safety, pausing for a second before suddenly opening the door and raising the gun with both hands towards the unknown person waiting on the other side.

The girl that is on the other side of the doorway blinks twice with an unamused expression at the raised gun barrel that appears in her face when Reiji opens the door. She is wearing a light peach-pink hooded poncho underneath a pink mid-length coat with wrist-length sleeves which are folded back at the wrists as part of the fashion, and a purple turtle-neck vest with a strap closing for the front of the neck with gold buttons and black elastic string. White shorts that end just at the bottom of the coat with front pockets could be seen, and a pair of dark brown boots with white socks that poke just out of the top of them. However, Reiji does not take in any of her appearance as he stares in a mixture of surprised disbelief and shock at the face belonging to the ghost whose voice he heard over the phone.

"I'm coming in." the ghost of Eren states as she walks towards and then past him, her left hand first touching, then lowering his frozen left arm as she passes. The physical contact was enough for Reiji to believe that this copy of Eren was not a ghost, and that this was not, oh so thankfully not, a wishful dream.

With speed worthy of an assassin with the title of Phantom, Reiji let's go of the gun in his left hand while still holding it in his right, grabs Eren's left arm at the wrist so that it's behind her and she stops in her tracks. "I thought I killed you." He whispers as he pulls her towards him into a hug, his face that of a haunted man.

"Shush…" she whispers from his chest. "It's all in the past now." Reiji's only response was to tighten his hug as tears silently begin to stream down his face. Eren smiles at the warmth and over-emotional display that the reserved assassin was showing; it was good as it showed there was still some humanity inside of him and that he had yet to fully become a tool for Inferno. "I'm a part of you and you are a part of me. I will not die as long as you are alive." She mummers as she returns the hug by wrapping her arms around his waist. Quietly they hold one another, enveloped in the simple joy of knowing that the other was alive and here in this moment.

She pulls back and looks up at Reiji's face, where a simple smile shines like light from a lighthouse in the darkest of storms. The smile all too quickly is replaced with a frown of worry that is replicated in his brown eyes, as he then speaks. "Does Scythe know you are here, or are you acting under his orders?"

Eren shakes her head with a "No he does not know, for now." Her gaze turns to that of a haunted person, her eyes filled with an unknown memory as brief, sporadic flashes of pain, guilt and determination appear then disappear behind her calm, neutral mask. Unexpectedly Eren swiftly punches Reiji in the gut just below the lungs, he falls on his knees as the hand that had punched him moves to his neck and with two fingers, applies pressure as he stares up at her. Her grey eyes blink, to reveal a pair of blue lifeless irises as Reiji says her name, the one he gifted her so long ago, in an confused voice "Eren…?" before fading into the sleep of unconsciousness.


	2. The Phantom Vengence

The guards barely give her a second glance as she walks on past them into the building where Eren knows Scythe is waiting, for the past-Eren to finish her mission. She walks down the ghostly hallway until she arrives at the door to the room where she knows her former master awaits. Eren inhales softly as she feels the raised area of her clothing where the Colt Python revolver is concealed before lowering her hand and entering the room. The lone man sitting in a lounge chair next to a desk in the center of the room is the only other person that she can see from a swift sweeping of the room with her eyes. A frown crosses Scythe Master's face as he looks up from the white, full-face phantom mask he was painting at the intruder, who closes the door behind her.

Eren does not step further into the room once she closes the door, but removes the revolver from her right front pocket and the silencer from her left. Her former master speaks, his voice only containing faint curiosity as to her actions and presence in the room. "Why have you abandoned your mission and yet return to my side, Ein?" The faint click of the silencer being attached to the revolver is his only auditory response as the Phantom aligns the silenced Colt Python with Scythe Master's forehead. Her cloud-grey eyes blink once at him over the gun before Eren calmly replies. "I have already killed you before, Master. You are nothing but a ghost, without a reason to exist. That's why… you must return to hell ahead of me."

"You're… serious? Impos…" his sentence is silenced as the bullet enters his head, his shaded glasses flying off as he and the chair fall back with twin, dull thuds. Eren stares at his body as she lowers the gun and knows what must be done.

* * *

Reiji fires his sniper rifle, killing the other male sniper and receiving a scratch across the cheek in kind. A bullet still enters the room of the building where the meeting between Inferno and the Godo mafia is being held. Reiji looks in the direction that he knows is the only possible way the bullet could have reached the building with the layout of the city and wind direction. _You're still working for Scythe, Eren?_ He wonders as his brown eyes narrow in confusion at her current actions and what she had said and done the previous night.

No less than fifteen minutes after completing the counter-sniping mission and avenging Judy's death, Reiji gets the call from Liz. She speaks with each word coming clear and cleanly over the phone, yet her voice still rang with anger.

"Damnit Azuma, what the hell were you thinking, storming Scythe Master's hideaway without any fucking backup!?"

In the background Reiji can hear the panicked confusion as guards shout orders to one another in their effort to find the perpetrator, or gather a semblance of order with one of the higher ups of Inferno now dead.

"Liz, explain from the beginning…" Reiji calmly states into the flip phone.

"Asshole, don't act like it wasn't you… Scythe is dead, guards have no clue as to who it was other than a sticky note found on the body… Tch, damn rat had it -"

Reiji's mind blocks out everything Liz says next, not comprehending what she had just said because the facts _do not make sense_ , and yet all pointed to the person that Reiji knew would be the last person to harm Scythe. His gaze flickers up and down the empty street that the apartment where the two were staying was on, his empty hand reaching into his pocket to make sure the keys to a certain vehicle were where they belonged.

" – best to keep your friends close and enemies at firing range. Scythe's pet returns to that snake's den, only to 'discover' the body and the note **you** left. What the hell were you thinking, doing this when you were taking care of that girl, did you want to drag her into your own mess, or do you not fucking care? I swear Azuma, if this turns into last year's mess, I'll -"

"Lizzie, I did not do it... However, I have a good idea of who did kill Scythe. Do you know where… Ein is?" Reiji asks, a hint of sadness tracing the end of his question.

A harsh sigh comes from the other end of the phone before Lizzie answers his quarry.

"Hell if I do. Some of the guards who rushed to the scene saw the chick standing over the corpse reading the note, and while they were fussing over the chain of command, she left without a trace other than what the murderer on the note had written."

Reiji blinks once before he exhales slowly, his gaze tracing the rear of the black car, a Taurus, he and Cal had used to get back home.

He slowly asks "What made you, and the rest of Inferno, think it was me who murdered Scythe?"

"The note. Whoever the hell wrote it signed it with your codename, Zewi."

Reiji's eyes narrow as the memory from earlier that day reenter's his mind along with another memory, a memory of a long, long dreamlike drive in the very car in front of him. "Liz, don't show up near the apartment any time soon. Cal and me are going out for dinner, and I don't want you to get in trouble. I'm hanging up."

The male mounts the stone steps that lead into the apartment from the sidewalk, and walks up towards his shared apartment in the loft of the building. The wafting smell of groceries and hamburger meat cooking has his stomach growling before Reiji had entered the kitchen. The smile he wears on his face at watching Cal humming as she stirs the ladle in the pot fails to reach his calculating gaze as he sits down at the table.

* * *

"Oye, Azuma!" Lizzie angrily shouts into the phone, but only static beeping greets her. "Damn brat, you're going to die if you keep this up… idiot." She exhales in a despairing sigh as her eyes wander outside, to where the yellow crime tape flapped gently in the wind. The bodyguard looks down at her phone with a sour expression before the note in her other hand crumpled against the steering wheel that it tightened against, words still visible on the wrinkled copy of the evidence.

 _Meet you at the place I was born. - Zewi_


	3. Seeing Double Trouble

Eren silently drives in the grey Golf car down the familiar L. A. highway, towards the place that was removed from the time of the outside world. Her side aches, her stomach heaves, and the sour taste of bile rises to the back of her throat as she remembers what she had seen upon entering the room where Master awaited her. His hollowed, lifeless eyes staring back up at her, no longer able to assess her with their cold, piercing gaze, his lips frozen in a small gap, unable to give her orders to follow, to give her a path to walk down in her bloodstained life. The marble-cold touch of the hand that rested on top of the note, once full of burning heat as it grazed her cheek in a echoing slap, now void of life like her shattered heart. Eren knows it's not Reiji's handwriting on the note, just because the handwriting is so similar to her own… because… Azuma Reiji was dead…

The assassin shakes her head to clear it of the distracting thoughts as a truck passing her blares the horn in warning to her one-lane weaving on the highway. Eren inhales softly as her cheeks become wet followed by soft plops as the tears fall from her chin and onto her black skin-tight suit that she wore on her previous mission. She knows why she is driving there, to that place, so she hits the accelerator and speeds down the highway, across the desert, only slowing down when the abandoned building comes into sight. The former Phantom notes that the warehouse door is open as the headlights of the Golf sweep over it before coming to a stop. Calmly she steps out of the car and walks forward through the open doors, only to pause at the sight she sees.

The girl is easy to spot, standing in what would have been the main storage area, now empty except for the metal beams and chains that shone silver in the moonlight streaming through the open warehouse door. "Who are you?" She asks the copy of herself, who is dressed in mostly pink civilian wear, a blank expression on her other's face as the girl fully turns to face her.

"Defeat me and find out." The copy replies as she tosses a bowie knife to the other girl, whose eyes seem to change to a deep shadow of blue inside the warehouse as she catches the handle of the thrown knife in its flight.

Faintly, if one were listening for it, the sound of car wheels over desert sand could be heard over the sound of clashing metal. The girl in the back seat of the Taurus had already unbuckled her seat belt before leaning forward, her head poking through the gap between the driver and passenger seats. Cal blinks at Reiji with a curious frown, though the worry was still shown clear in her eyes and voice.

"Reiji, do you have to do this?"

"Yes, I have too. That note was meant for me, Cal… Whoever targeted Scythe, might come after us next…" He replies as he takes off his seat belt and opens the driver's door.

 _Although they might be using Inferno to do their dirty work… it just doesn't add up…_ _why... why would she kill him now, and not when they were overseas?_

"Stay safe." She reminds him.

Reiji glances back at her, a soft reassuring smile already forming on his face at her voice.

"I will." He promises, before stepping out of the driver's seat and feeling the outside of the inner breast pocket where the Berretta semi-automatic pistol awaited his hand and command. He walks forward, the darkness inside the warehouse swallowing him from Cal's view.

 _'_ _What the hell…'_ Reiji thinks as he comes across two Eren's fighting one another with a pair of familiar knives. ' _Cal must have put something in the hamburger soup we had for dinner last night.'_ Reiji concludes as he shakes his head to clear one of the Eren images away, but the action fails to do anything. Then Reiji remembers, _'I was the one who went out'_ – the girls get close to one another, both knives shaking as they struggled against the blocking opponent's knife – ' _and bought all of the groceries for the soup,'_ – the girls leap apart before the Eren dressed in black lunges forward with her knife and begins a series of erratic swipes that the other girl blocks with her own knife and gracefully dodges backwards between some of the blocks – ' _and none of the existing ingredients in my apartment's cabinets and the grocery cart could induce hallucinogens'_ – the Eren that he had met at his apartment glances briefly at Reiji as she nimbly dances to the side of yet another lunge of her opponent's knife – ' _of this level. Maybe the Hamburger meat was unprocessed,'_ – the other Eren takes opportunity of this momentary distraction and does a round-house kick that knocks her opponent to the floor on her side, the knife spinning as it flies into the darkness and lands with a echoing clatter – ' _or the vegetables were doused with drugs?'_ – The black-clad Eren with the knife in hand walks forwards towards her downed opponent, stands above her, crouches down and shoves her opponent's left shoulder to the right so that she is now lying on her back – ' _Maybe it was the amount of salt I had added as per Cal's request…'_

"Tell me," the Eren on top says, her voice laced with sadness and bitter regret. "…Why, why did you kill Master?" The Eren on the bottom turns her head towards Reiji and away from the knife that is pointed at her throat. Her eyes soften as they land on the dumbstruck male just before she replies.

"Eventually it is what you would have done, in my place."

The black-cladded Eren calmly hisses "And how are you certain of that?" as the tip of the knife is pressed to her captive's neck, drawing a bead of blood that trickles down her foe's collar bone.

"Because I come from the future." Was the reply she received as the Eren underneath her glances at her from the corner of her own grey eyes. The knife is slowly removed from the time-traveler's neck by a pair of shaking hands. The Eren that held the knife sits back and tosses it to the side, it too clatters into the darkness before silence reigns in the warehouse, like the tense still moments just before an explosion.


	4. Time Reveals all Truths

Eren sits there on top of her future self, her shoulders shaking as soft sobs echo in the room for several moments. The tears were still trailing down the victor's face as she speaks in a broken voice.

"I don't know… what I should do... Because Master killed him… and you killed Master… what reason do I have now… to live on…?"

She remembers with clarity the conversation she had with Master, when she regained consciousness on the boat wrapped in a towel inside of a warm bed, her arms and side attached to multiple IV's full of blood. How he told her he had shot Reiji three times, the look of shocked despair etched on his face as he fell backwards into the water, his body never recovered having sunk under the waves… Ein does not believe the brief sight she sees as the tinted-windowed car pulls up to the meeting spot between the Japanese Mafia and Inferno, and Reiji's ghost leaves the driver's seat. She ignores the second sight of him she sees in the elevator, pointing a gun at her once more as the doors close between them. It's with numb legs and an empty heart that Ein calmly walks down the steps of the Casino, back to Master's side.

The girl underneath reaches up and touches the crying girl's cheek with the crock of her index finger, the tears traveling down the cheek following the downward angle. With a soft smile, the time-traveler speaks as she turns her head towards Reiji, who walks forward with a dazed look upon his face.

"You will find your own reason to live, weather on your own… or by his side, the choice is yours alone to make."

The other girl gets off of her downed opponent before sitting down on her knees as Reiji crouches down to the side of both girls, his eyes narrowing momentarily before he speaks.

"You said… you came from the future. What did you mean by that?"

Eren sits up, the back of her pink coat now covered in patches of grey from the dust covered ground, as she savors the shocked smile on her past-self's face as Reiji asked her the question. She pretends to ignore the way their hands slide towards the other's and become clasped together, as she tells them everything that she knows has been changed by her appearance in the past.

"I was there on the rooftop in my own time, when you drove up in the car with Ms. Mc Cullen. I… I did not want to believe you were real, a figment of my imagination that became real when Master ordered me to come here, and… to 'kill Zewi'. I did come here, and found Reiji, just like now. I did not kill him, and we fled together to Mexico, eventually reaching Japan..."

The time-traveler looks away briefly from her small audience before continuing to calmly tell her tale.

"We spent a long time there in Japan as brother and sister. It was like a dream, watching your heart heal just from being in your homeland. But just like any dream, we had to wake up when a 'ghost from your past' appeared, working for Inferno as the third Phantom."

Reiji sat there silently musing over the time-traveled Eren's words, the younger Eren merely saying "Who was the third Phantom?" with a knowing glance at Reiji.

"A green-eyed blonde teenager who had proper training in using guns, and carried a musical pocket watch that was silver in color…" Reiji sharply inhales at this, dumbstruck recognition flying across his face before the neutral facade settles once more over his expression as the time-traveler continues to speak.

"Reiji never spoke of his past with her to me, both before, and after he killed her in a duel. I do not know what specifically occurred during the duel as I fought the Godo yakuza outside while the duel took place. Scythe then appeared and Reiji rejoined me outside. We ended up fighting against Scythe's new Phantoms, but…"

She inhales deeply as the memory of a feather floating down into a pool of blood enters her mind, before steeling her heart and speaking once more in a sorrowful voice.

"We won, and… I killed Master… by myself… because it was my choice, to end it there..."

Eren then looks at her younger self, who leans against Reiji's arm, her shoulders shaking as soft pained sobs escape from her frozen lips. There was nothing she could say to comfort the broken girl, for only time and living in a dream had healed her before. Slowly the other Eren's shoulders stop shaking and she raises her head, her grey eyes meeting grey eyes. A pause at contact, then she softly speaks.

"I understand… why you did it… but hearing it… I still feel like I'm trapped in a nightmare… it's just too crazy, all of this…"

Reiji's arms slowly move to embrace her from behind, and he whispers into her ear.

"Then we will turn this nightmare into a dream, a dream where you can live like a normal everyday girl. I still haven't forgotten what I promised you, Eren."

Her eyes close and the tear-stained face slowly nods once before she stands up, Reiji also standing up before offering a hand to the time-traveler. She takes it, and when he releases it, she says three simple words that sum up what the trio want to do most.

"Let's go home."


	5. The Journey Home

"Who are they?" Cal questions Reiji as he opens the car door, the two girls traveling to the other side of the car to open their respective doors as well.

Reiji sighs as he gets into the driver's seat, the time-traveler choosing to sit in the back with Cal.

With a glance in the rear-view mirror the male Phantom answers her question in a tired voice.

"I'll explain later. Okay Cal?"

The pout she gives him would have been cute if it were not for the angry glare accompanying it.

They drive south instead of north this time, having made preparations for an extended vacation the night beforehand before leaving the loft in L.A. for the abandoned-factory-turned-warehouse. Reiji stops the car in a rather empty parking lot for a motel, the neon sign proclaiming the place's name _Homey Little Motel_ glowing a faint orange in the descending nightfall. The manager barely even glances at the others as he hands Reiji a room key, the jangle of the single room-tag and key bumping together audible over the quiet "How much for one night here?" the time-traveler asks. The manager, a buff man with a golden-brown haircut and a large nose wearing a waiter's suit merely states "It's free for the first group of customers, as it's just me and old Irimi that stay here." The black dog sleeping next to the desk opens an eye and cocks a ear at the sound of its name before resuming its nap. "Thank you." Reiji says with a nod to the manager and dog, before following the others to the first floor bedroom with the number matching the one on the tag: V14.

* * *

Cal enters the room first and lifts two of the small suitcases she had retrieved from the trunk onto one of the two queen-sized beds in the room, both taking up much of the living space available. Reiji more or less collapses into one of the two chairs in the room with a tired sigh, listening to the sound of the water being turned on in the bathroom by the copies of the girl who had trained him. One of their voices travels to his ears, and Reiji listens in to the conversation, the ingrained assassin habit to be aware of his surroundings making it near impossible to ignore what was occurring on the other side of the closed door.

"You… have the same scars as me…"

"With our pasts being the same so far, the events further back in time would have also repeated in the same manner, for our memories… and scars to be the same."

Reiji opens his eyes, for a moment the only sound that filled the rented room was Cal's soft humming as she finishes unpacking one of the suitcases and the sound of hot shower water as steam began to curl up from under the door.

"Did he… give you a… a name as well?"

Another short pause before the voice that Reiji knows belong to the time-traveler replies, her voice not quiet sad but still distant in tone. "Yes… He gave me two names to go by. The first one was in the motel on that night…"

A lump form's in Azuma's throat as the memories of that same fateful night that plagued him in nightmares surface to the forefront of his mind, each as bright as the muzzle flash of a fired gun.

 _The wafting scent of blood cloying the air as he enters the factory-warehouse room where he finds Ein, a bleeding bullet wound in her lower abdomen on the left side. Making the choice of his own free will to save her and then travel with her while escaping from Inferno. He finds her sitting on the edge of the bathtub in the motel room, a gun pointed at the side of her head yet unable to pull the trigger on her own._

 _Without Master by her side, without orders, she was nothing more than a broken girl without a purpose to live for, void of the will to function, to make her own decisions; like a puppet or remote-controlled robot. He gives her a new name; Eren, for no particular reason really, because anything would be better than the number that had been her name beforehand, Ein, and with the new name a purpose, a reason other than Scythe to live for._

 _Being separated and then encountering her once more on the docks that Inferno had discovered Scythe Master was using to escape from them and the country, Reiji himself having been captured by Inferno and promised that both of them would be spared from the organization's wrath if he killed Scythe._

 _Firing the gun at Scythe, the bullet entering Eren's body as she leaps in front, the hole appearing where her heart was. Him falling to his knees as she stumbles and falls into the ocean nearby. Scythe firing three bullets into his body when he turns around, standing up from where Eren had sank, the cumulative force of each slamming into him causes him to take a step backwards and throws him into the ocean as well…_

 _Sinking away from the light, thinking of a promise to make her smile… awaking on a nearby beach, the waves cold and numb to his body as the gun his hand rested upon, his last thought her name as he succumbs to exhaustion and despair…_

* * *

Cal's soft yet excited cry of "There you are!" as she takes out the silver watch from where she had packed it and sat on the edge of the bed, the soft, gentle notes and her exclamation breaking through Reiji's pain filled memories. For a few moments longer there is nothing heard from the bathroom other than the continuous sound of water running, which gradually ceases before the conversation begins anew.

"…That night he named me, us… Eren, and gave us something much more than the name itself."

"The name is the same as the one I have, but you also said he named you a second time. When did he…?"

"While we were in Japan, he helped me realize that Eren could be spelt with the same kanji as Elen, so Elen became a nickname for 'his little sister'. It was a name that 'Oni-chan' would only call me by when we were alone at school or at the apartment… it remained with me long after we left Japan."

"It must be nice… having two names…"

Only the sound of Cal's music watch barely muffles the sound of bare feet against wet tile from behind the closed doorway to the bathroom.

"Here, your hair is still wet…"

The time-traveler continues talking over the soft ruffle of cloth over hair or skin, Reiji did not care to know as he leans back into the chair and closes his eyes for the start of a light nap.

"…It's your name now as well. A gift for a brighter future… by his side, wherever that may be, Elen."

"Elen…" the other girl repeats softly in a voice that was broken; yet still held a hint of hope in the single word, a light shining in the darkness. He hears the bathroom door opening, and Eren introducing herself to Cal before the tired male enters the restful land of peaceful dreams.

* * *

The airport they arrive at the next morning was small, yet still well-used if the large amount of people walking to and fro was any indication to go by. On a nearby mounted TV screen opposing the gate where their plane would be landing in a few minutes, a female reporter stands in front of the camera, a burning apartment in the small square to the right. The live video of the apartment fire grows to fill the whole TV screen, with the red captions GANG VIOLENCE STRIKES LOS ANGELES ONCE MORE appearing on the bottom of the screen.

"There goes the evidence… all up in smoke…" Reiji states with a hapless shrug as he turns from the TV to continue his walk towards the boarding area for their plane.

"What evidence?" Elen questions, a curious gaze in her eyes as she stares at him while walking ahead. A small gasp comes from Cal before Reiji feels her small balled fists thumping his back repeatedly from behind.

"Reiji you idiot! You left the five million dollars behind?!" Cal half-shouts before Eren slaps a hand over her mouth and loudly states with a displeased look on her face, like a cousin admonishing a younger family member for all the onlookers to hear.

"Really now, you should stop bothering Reiji about that video game you two _constantly_ play, Cal. We are supposed to be on a family vacation, remember?"

Eren shifts her gaze to a few nearby onlookers with a unpleasant scowl, that leave the waiting area to board a nearby plane that was not at the gate the fleeing assassins were waiting at. Reiji remembers the five million dollars Cal had accidentally stolen from the mafia stuffed in the same suitcase she had found it in, which he had left in the inner hallway of the apartment building for Inferno to find.

"I thought they would ransack the loft, seeing as how I'm supposed to be the only Phantom left, not burn it to the ground with a bomb." He half-heartedly protests as Elen drags him forward by the arm.

"Even so, try to be a bit more discreet with what you say." Eren mummers into Cal's hair as she removes her hand from the other girl's lips. With a downcast look Cal silently nods before squaring her shoulders and walking forward, a determined gaze in her Green-Jade eyes. With a final glance at the burning building being shown on the news, the group board the plane heading to the next stop in their journey to northern China.


	6. Her Dying Dream

The disembarkment from the plane was swift and easy, and their luggage was picked up without any suspicious onlookers or trouble. From the airport, with Eren in the lead, the three assassins and one civilian get on a bus heading to the outskirt fields, advertising some rare type of flower that only bloomed during that season in the wild grasses of Mongolia. The driver of the bus takes them to an old, sturdy cabin that looked unused, but he assured them repeatedly that it was often used by sightseers such as them and the occasional shepherd.

* * *

They spend a year there in the disused cabin, sometimes herding sheep with the occasional traveling shepherd that was passing through the area, gathering wild plants that were edible according to the books left behind by the previous occupants and a few tips from the rare, near seasonal passersby coming to see the flowers or rolling hillside. Sometimes the travelers would leave a bit of money for some wild-grown snacks, or a story or few told around a small campfire as the sheep sleep around them. The donated money was enough for them to get by, helpful in cleaning up the cabin and when purchasing other necessities.

* * *

Cal swiftly grew in that one-year time-period, gaining about a foot in height, one size outwards in her bra size, and was beginning to wear her hair in a straight ponytail instead of the curling twin tails that she had before. Eren noted that Cal looked exactly like the third Phantom in appearance, confirming her suspicions about Drei's origins in her past, along a future that would never happen again. Reiji confronts her about it one night on the repaired porch steps to the cabin, the gaze in his eyes matching the many stars above in the half-moon's light. "Are you planning to do something with Cal?" he asks her, eyes lingering on the small silver scar on her neck.

Eren turns her gaze from the sky above and looks at him out of the corner of her eyes before replying with the barest hint of curiosity in her voice. "Do you want me to?" Silently with eyes closed he shakes his head, and that was all that was ever said on the subject between them.

* * *

The time-traveler stands in the doorframe, wearing clothes that matched the ones she wore when she had traveled to the past, a small smile on her face listening to the sound of carrots being chopped in the kitchen by Elen. Eren watches Reiji and Cal chase some sheep with the sheep dogs, the sun just beginning to set behind them, painting the sky a almost-familiar pink-red hue. She knew her time was approaching, in the same way she knew what had to be done to accomplish each mission, to make Reiji and her past self come to the warehouse in this life. The question "Is something wrong?" that comes from Elen, approaching with the knife being wiped with the helm of her grey shirt, startles Eren; a wistful frown appearing at the other girl's question before she replies.

"My time is running out. I don't know when I'll be gone, a few weeks, days, hours… I just know that it will be soon."

Elen pauses next to the wooden table in the center of the room, both arms limp at her side as she states "I see."

The other girl turns her head away from Elen and watches the clouds slowly change from pink to light orange, her chest aching with a familiar hurt that had visited her far too many times in her past.

"I wish I could stay here a little longer, by his side."

Elen's next words are full of such conviction to fulfil the promise held in the single sentence that Eren does not respond for a few seconds, the sensation similar to what she felt when she had killed Scythe the first time in a too distant past.

"You will. You gave me this name that he had given you, so even when you are gone, some of you will still be here, inside of me."

Eren turns her head to stare in slight awe at Elen before smiling, the tears falling from her eyes bathed in a glittering orange from the setting sun outside.

"Yes, yes you're right… You'll remain with the two of them forever, in my place."

Elen shares a smile with her as Eren wipes the tears away, before walking down the steps to shout to the two sheep chasers that dinner was ready.

* * *

A few days later Eren sits on the front steps that lead into the cabin, her chin resting on her folded hands with a ghostly orchid flower with white petals that were light purple around the edges twirling between her fingers. It's as she watches the others successfully catch a rather energetic and rambunctious white lamb that Eren feels it, several waves of warmth and chilled cold sending shivers all across her body. It was the same sensation that she had felt when she had found herself on the corner of Normandy Street, hundreds of miles away from where she had been moments before. The flower slowly falls from her hand as the warm-grey-haired assassin closes her eyes for the last time in acceptance, the scenery before her seared into her final memory, vibrant and clear. Eren does not feel the flower as it lands inside her leg, no more than a person without existence to the world around her…

The three sheep chasers are laughing and teasing the bleating lamb wrapped in Cal's red jacket when Elen notices the change, a shift in the wind, a brief lack of warmth from the setting red sun behind them. She looks up towards the cabin, the hand scratching the lamb behind the ear ceasing in its movement as Eren begins to fade before her eyes. Reiji and Cal, both noting that Elen had stopped and tensed in movement follow her gaze to the cabin steps, where the pair see the last of Eren vanish the moment the flower touches the wooden steps where she had been sitting just a few moments before. The hollow bleat of the lamb echoes in the empty sense of sorrow, and confusion that follows the living assassins for the next several days.

* * *

It was almost time for them to move on, to leave the cabin and travel someplace else to avoid being found by Inferno, as they had agreed upon doing after spending six months in the same cabin. And yet it felt as if something needed to be done, something to remember, something to show that they each had been there and had existed outside of the memories that the three shared. It was Reiji's idea to build a lantern and place it in the ground, the reasons behind left unsaid yet spoken clear enough to the others. He finds the empty glass bottle from last week's trip to the nearby town, and a half-full oil can that was left over by the previous occupants provided the fuel for what they planned. Cal cuts the wax around the wick on the long candle stick with swift defying strokes of the military knife that Eren had given her a month beforehand, handing the wax-covered wick to Reiji without saying a word. He sits at the table, a bowie knife carefully shaving away the remaining chunks and slivers of wax with a calm look of concentration. The fading daylight barely glints off the knife and the two objects on the table, a small see-through plastic oil can with its bottom half darker in color, and a see-through copper-colored bottle that had been placed on the table in preparation for the task.

Once the flat wire of wick was cleaned free of wax underneath his care, Cal takes it from him and places a small section of the long wick into the bottle while Reiji pours the oil into the bottle from the side. When the bottle was half way full he stops pouring in the same moment that Cal inserts the rest of the wick into the bottle which ends just inside the opening of the bottle. She turned to glance at Reiji as he picks up one of the bottles that litter the floor, remnants of their sorrow held inside before he leaves her sight when she passes the threshold of the cabin. Cal walked forward to where Elen was planting familiar flowers into the side of the mound, a sad look of acceptance on the former assassin's face. The blonde's face matched the other girl's as she closes her eyes briefly while crouching down next to the mound and handing her the bottle, the liquid inside sloshing around with the action. After the bottle is nestled into the hole made in the center of the mound and lit by Elen with a lighter, the two girls pray, the ache of someone who they knew would eventually leave still all too fresh.

* * *

The night is spent in silence, each person drifting off to sleep with the aid of painful memories and drink, Elen being the last to sleep herself. Her memories however, were not as painful as the moment that she woke up before the others, the burden she took upon herself heavy on her shoulders. She stands up and walks to the doorway, the early morning breeze cool on her heated skin and soothing to her heart. The mixture of nightshade and geranium flowers planted on the grave move gently in the breeze, as if to say 'go on, be with him'. Elen walks forward and crouches next to the grave without a body, silent as she waits for the morning grey to fill the sky. It's around six o'clock when she hears Cal behind her, Reiji stumbling outside after the blonde towards the packed car with a bottle in his hand.

* * *

Reiji watches Cal walk towards the back of the car, opens the door for him, then holds it open as if expecting him to get in like a VIP. A few seconds pass, and fed up with waiting, Cal struts towards him, her eyes flashing like a cat's in the pre-morning light.

"Come on, Sappy-Reiji." Cal grunts as she grabs the arm that held the drink and pulls him into the back of the car on top of her, Reiji's feet kicking the door close behind him with the action.

"Sorry..." He half-grunts in a whine, his brown eyes not quite fully focused on anything in particular as they flicker from Cal getting off of him to the driver's seat at the sound of the driver's door being opened and closed shortly after.

Reiji continues talking "I'm a sap when I drink… sorry about that…"

Cal lets out a sad huff at him as she puts on his seat belt then her own before saying "You're worse than Judy with your drinking; Reiji…" Elen glancing at the two in the rear view mirror as she turns the key, the sorrowful tears streaming down her face contrasting her smile at the pair's antics. The wind blows, carrying a faint whisper of 'thank you' across the sea of sun-stained grass as the three drive on towards the darkness to newer, less special meadows, the sun rising behind them.

No one looks back.


End file.
